


Shadows at Twilight

by Carbon65



Series: Graceland snapshots [3]
Category: Graceland (TV)
Genre: AU: canon parallel, Ableism, Anger, Break Up, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Fighting, Friends With Benefits, Gen, Human Trafficking, Lies, Misogyny, Prostitution, complicated feelings, self doubt, self gaslighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 19:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2663408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbon65/pseuds/Carbon65
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s been walking this line for a long, long time. She’s been trying to stay on the right side, even when the lines blurred. It’s not easy to dance with the devil and keep your soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows at Twilight

**Author's Note:**

> For the H/C Bingo round 5 prompt, "Fighting"

They work in gray areas. She has always known this, always accepted this, long before an overly eager boy with floppy blond hair and blue eyes and an overdeveloped sense of responsibility arrived. She’s been walking this line for a long, long time. She’s been trying to stay on the right side, even when the lines blurred. It’s not easy to dance with the devil and keep your soul.

This case... with this case, there should be no question about the line. There should be no question about where they stand. These girls, they’re not just foreign nationals, not just illegal immigrants, they’re not just drug mules, not just prostitutes, not just product: they’re human beings, innocent children, victims. They deserve freedom. They have a right to freedom, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To basic human rights. To autonomy. To all the things she swore to protect and uphold. And, she keeps failing them.

“Mike.” The word is cracks like a whip.

He turns.

“What the hell?”

Her slap is quick, hard, and precise.

She knows she looks crazy. Tears streak her cheeks, and her eyes are red. Her nose runs. She’s never been a pretty crier. Angry crier, maybe. She’s angry at herself. And, God, she’s angry at him. Because he’s the one who was supposed to help her, who was supposed to bring back up. ...But, that’s how women look when they’re angry, right? Crazy. And a crazy woman’s opinion is just raving. It doesn’t matter if she’s right, it only matters how she looks.

“You’ll get her out.” She orders, fiercely.

“I had to leave her in,” he hisses, his voice shaking. Mike’s voice does not shake. “But, I’ll get her out.”

She reaches out to hit him again, and he catches her wrist. His grip is hard, tight, holding her back. But, his hand shakes. And, she can see the sweat ringing his collar.

“You don’t know what I’m dealing with. You don’t know all the pieces that I’m juggling.” The tone creaps up toward a whine. He closes his eyes, exhales hard. He is frustrated.

“Those girls are not some puzzle peices. Those girls are human beings.” The words are filled with icy venom.

She remembers the way her uncle and grandmother used to chastise her when she was a child. Good girls don’t get angry. Good girls don’t get into fights, Paige.  They used this tone, this sentiment. She remembers the way it felt, each word like a coiled spring hitting her in the stomach.

She twists her wrist from his grasp, the grip weaker than she realized. “You will get her out, Mike. Or, so help me God...”

She walks - walks, not runs - with her head held high. The door to her room shuts with a quiet thud, not the crack of a slam. And then, only then, does she let herself cry.

She doesn’t know if Mike sleeps alone, that night. She doesn’t know if he runs to Jessica for comfort. She’s suspected they were sleeping together, that he was sleeping with someone. And, she doesn’t know if she cares. She doesn’t know if that makes her a cheater, makes him a cheater, makes them both equally culpable, or removes all culpability.

It doesn’t matter.

The transition from allies to adversaries is all to seamless. The discovery that Mike doesn’t care is all too seamless. She hates him, hates him more than she hates Sulla, more than she hates Solano, more than she hates this world with its shades of gray and taint of red. She hates him almost as much as she hates herself.

She misses Levi, too. She misses the Mike who she knew. And, she wonders if he’s fight the same battle that she is, if he’s still trying to walk this line without letting it touch his soul. She wonders if they couldn’t have fought together, and maybe won.

  
  
After Mike’s safe house... she goes to Markham. She’s done trying. She’s done justifying. She’s done fighting. The only soul she could ever save was her own. And, she doesn’t know if she’s just tripped into a fiery pit, or if she’s walked off the dance floor, clean. 


End file.
